All Articles
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KEVIN PEOPLES. Is the Male Clerical Church Irrelevant?
I first met the clerical God in 1964. I was 27. This was at Springwood, in the Blue Mountains. I met him while hiding away at St. Columba’s seminary. He was not to my liking and we parted in just under three years. Unlike my God, this distant and patrichal God lived somewhere outside his Continue reading »
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Christopher Pyne: Consultancy as government
The sudden elevation of Christopher Pyne – formerly Minister for Defence Industries – to defence consultant with Ernst & Young may have taken some people by surprise. Surely, though, it was always on the cards, especially since he retired from parliament at a relatively young age of 51 and with a pre-election likelihood of not Continue reading »
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ROB MAINWARING. Centre-left politics: dead, in crisis, or in transition? (The Conversation, 24 June 2019)
The ALP’s defeat at the 2019 federal election was a surprise. Shorten’s Labor fell short, against both wider commentariat predictions and unrepresentative polls. Yet, if we take a step back, the result is less surprising if we locate Labor’s defeat in the wider “crisis” of social democracy. Continue reading »
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MONIQUE ROSS. Why the Pharmacy Guild is the most powerful lobby group you’ve never heard of (ABC News)
It’s been called the most influential lobby group in Australia, and some believe it has the power to bring down a government if it really flexed its muscle. Continue reading »
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ROBERT MICKENS. Reforming the Church with ‘no possibility of return.’ How Pope Francis is initiating processes of Church reform that will be hard to undo.
How many cardinals does it take to help Pope Francis reform the Roman Curia? And how many years do they need to get the job done?Many Catholics – at least those who are hoping the pope can succeed in decentralizing ecclesial power away from the Vatican – have grown frustrated that after some six years Continue reading »
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MICHAEL KEATING Why the Stage 3 tax cuts will need to be revisited.
In previous articles I argued that Stage 3 of the Government’s proposed tax cuts should be opposed (see Pearls & Irritations, 30 May and 24 June). However, the Government appears to have the numbers to pass its proposed tax cuts as one package, with or without the support of the Labor Party. Nevertheless, the Grattan Continue reading »
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HUGH WHITE. With China’s swift rise as naval power, Australia needs to rethink how it defends itself (The Conversation, 2 July 2019)
Visiting Wellington in April 1996, I fell into conversation with a very wise and experienced New Zealand government official. We talked about the still-unfolding Taiwan Straits crisis, during which Washington had deployed a formidable array of naval power, including two aircraft carrier battle groups, to the waters around Taiwan. The aim was to compel China Continue reading »
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GEOFF MILLER: Trump in North Asia; policy changes?
A lot of the reactions to President Trump’s visits to the G20 in Osaka and to Korea have been scathing, but there are some positive signs in regard to both US-China trade issues and negotiations with North Korea. But having encouraged hard-line one-dimensional attitudes on both issues within the US, Trump may find that maintaining Continue reading »
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PETER RODGERS: Israel-Palestine and the Bahrain conference – Jared in wonderland
Whatever happens with Donald Trump’s presidency, the future of his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, is assured. A career as writer of romantic fiction is his for the asking. Continue reading »
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NOEL TURNBULL. The curious incident of the dog that didn’t bark
There is nothing more beloved of apocalyptic thinkers, intelligence agencies, conservative politicians and general scare-mongers than the threat of some disaster. It is even better when the threat is insidious, little understood and able to be transformed into policies which actually have other purposes. Continue reading »
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JOCELYN PIXLEY. Morrison bows to monied men
Liberal UK Prime Minister Gladstone, 1868-94, grumbled that William III put the state in a position of ‘subservience’ to induce ‘monied men to be lenders’ in 1694. As Australia faces recession, the Government bows to every bank demand for low wages and flatter taxes, to foster more household debts, rather than a fair and cautious Continue reading »
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MIKE BRUCE. No jobs here: Penalty rate cuts fail to fire up employment growth (New Daily)
Jobs growth in the retail and hospitality sectors has more than halved since the introduction of Sunday penalty rates, a new study has revealed. Continue reading »
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NARGES BAJOGHLI. Trump’s Iran strategy will fail (New York Times, 2 July 2019).
As tensions with Tehran escalate, Washington has been struggling to understand the internal thinking of the Iranian government, and especially that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The organization, which functions as an elite military branch and a bulwark of the country’s revolution, is today the most powerful force within Iran’s complicated political structure. Understand Continue reading »
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DONALD COZZENS. How much corruption can we tolerate in the church before we leave?
After reading James Carroll’s lengthy lament in The Atlantic on the corruption in the Catholic Church and its priestly caste, I remembered reading an article in America magazine by the late Jesuit theologian Walter Burghardt. “In the course of half a century,” the weathered scholar wrote in Tell the Next Generation, “I have seen more Continue reading »
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NIALL McLAREN Times change. Fools never.
Times change, and people who refuse to change with them will be left behind. Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: South Australia – Canary in the Ageing Coalmine
In terms of the impact of population ageing, South Australia provides a glimpse into Australia’s future. Over the next decade, ageing will impact Australia more significantly than at any time in our post World War II history. By 2030, all the 5.5 million baby boomers will be past age 65 and predominantly in retirement. Continue reading »
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Trump’s disdain for Japan is insulting and high-risk
In his forays abroad, US President Donald Trump increasingly resembles a bull carrying his own china shop on his back, to be set down for wrecking at diplomatic confabs. At the moment a grave crisis seems imminent with regard to Iran. As former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer notes, soon Trump will come to a Continue reading »
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PAUL BARRATT. What are we to make of Iran’s nuclear program?
Iran’s nuclear program, never out of the news for long, is on the front pages of the world with President Trump’s insistence that his belligerence towards Iran is driven by a desire to ensure that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons. The facts are that there is no reason to believe that Iran has made Continue reading »
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TONY WALKER. Acting on Iran has painful shades of joining the US in Iraq. (SMH 1.7.2019)
Here’s a word of advice to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Unless he wants to risk a smudge on his reputation of the sort that accompanies John Howard to this day: don’t get involved in conflict with Iran beyond limited naval engagement in a Gulf peace-keeping role. Continue reading »
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STEPHEN KINZER. In an astonishing turn, George Soros and Charles Koch team up to end US ‘forever war’ policy (Boston Globe, 30 June 2019)
BESIDES BEING BILLIONAIRES and spending much of their fortunes to promote pet causes, the leftist financier George Soros and the right-wing Koch brothers have little in common. They could be seen as polar opposites. Soros is an old-fashioned New Deal liberal. The Koch brothers are fire-breathing right-wingers who dream of cutting taxes and dismantling government. Continue reading »
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JOHN CARMODY. The enduring farce of British politics
To Australian eyes, British politics appear relentlessly chaotic, even anti-social. The solutions seem impossible to find, forever out of sight, let alone reach and – as in true tragedy – entirely self-inflicted. Continue reading »
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BERNARD MOYLAN. Homily on Israel Folau
I intended to speak today about the hyperbolic language Jesus used in order to get a point across. The point in today’s gospel is that life is more than rigid responsibilities and that our following him should be unencumbered. He is also reported as saying that “if your eye offend you, pluck it out; if Continue reading »
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RORY MCGUIRE. Middle East: Comedy or Tragedy?
It is increasingly difficult to decide whether the ongoing drama in the Middle East is a comedy or a tragedy. The actors are performing roles written for comedians but the consequences of their actions are tragic too often. Continue reading »
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ROBERT MICKENS. Pope Francis or Steve Bannon? Catholics must choose. American alt-right leader enlists Catholic allies to turn people against the pope
Among all the world’s political and social leaders, Pope Francis stands increasingly alone as the most powerful force for global peace and stability. Thank God – and the cardinals who elected him in March 2013 – that the Argentine Jesuit is the current Bishop of Rome. Continue reading »
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JENNY HOCKING. The ‘Palace letters’ case heads to the High Court
Professor Jenny Hocking’s long-running case against the National Archives of Australia seeking the release of the secret ‘Palace letters’ about the 1975 dismissal of the Whitlam government by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, stepped up again this week with the announcement of a Special Leave hearing in the High Court of Australia on 16 August. Continue reading »
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GARETH EVANS. Breaking through the bamboo ceiling: Asian-Australians in the Asian Century.
Asian-Australians are an underappreciated and underutilized national resource as we face the challenges and opportunities of the Asian century. The 2012 White Paper, and everyone else, agrees that we dramatically need to lift our ‘Asian capability’ – defined by the Diversity Council of Australia as meaning ‘individuals’ ability to interact effectively in Asian countries and Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. The Union movement has never been more important.
Last week Scott Morrison spelled out what he called his economic policy. But, as usual, it was little more than a series of motherhood slogans about the need for more productivity, less regulation, and a spot of union bashing for good measure—nothing new, nothing of real substance, much like the prime minister himself. Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE It’s time for a democratic socialist agenda for Australia
Australians have suffered greatly because of the free-market fundamentalism that has been running riot across the political landscape for nearly half a century. Neoliberalism has at last run its destructive course. It’s time for a new era of public policy reconstruction for which a democratic socialist agenda has much to offer. Continue reading »
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KIM WINGEREI The NBN is wrecking a whole industry
NBNCo is not just a costly technological failure, but a policy debacle that has cost Australias taxpayers billions of dollars that should have been better spent, as well as contributing to the severe devaluation of a whole industry. Continue reading »
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Slandering Assange, Conning the Public, Why This Process Must End
On June 26 at the National Press Club, media bosses demanded greater protection for whistleblowers and journalists, yet in the treatment of journalist /whistleblower Julian Assange, mainstream media have colluded in slander promoted by the US, UK and Australian political establishment. In response to this campaign, journalists have been negligent. Perhaps intimidated by threats Continue reading »